Brochure:

Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), a not for profit organization), is the world’s largest computing society and its education initiatives produce and update curricular recommendations. It has helped form Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA-US) that has recommended K-12 Computer Science Standards in the US. The ACM India’s Education Committee has started CSpathshala, an initiative to create a similar curriculum standard to teach computing as a science in India, with plans to roll it out to all schools across the country by 2030.

Computing is ubiquitous and people from every walk of life will need to be familiar with computing in some form or the other. This will give rise to a huge demand for computing skills leading to a talent shortage. To address the skills’ demand created by the industrial revolution, the Sciences and Mathematics were included in the school curriculum in the early 19th century. Now as we participate in the digital revolution, we need to train our children on skills for the digital age. We need to train our children to be creators and inventors of technology and at the same time teach them to be socially responsible citizens. It is therefore imperative to teach computing, which promotes problem solving, computational thinking and critical reasoning skills, at par with Mathematics and Sciences.

CSpathshala is an initiative to bring a modern computing curriculum to Indian schools. Industry and top academic institutions are working together to bring computational thinking to schools. Over 100 volunteers are engaged in creating content. The quality of CS education depends on quality curriculum, and the knowledge and capabilities of teachers teaching CS subjects. Technology is changing at a rapid pace hence continuous training of teachers is imperative. It is therefore important to conduct training programs and create and nurture a community of teachers, a forum for teachers to exchange notes and also invite experts to give talks.